Student housing comes into focus in Allston-Brighton

Matthew M. RobareTranscript@WickedLocal.com

Sunday

Jun 28, 2015 at 5:00 PM

The Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation held three public meetings last week to discuss the findings in the City of Boston's student housing report, released May 21 as part of the progress report on Mayor Martin Walsh housing plan.

According to the report, the city wants Boston's colleges to “create 18,500 new student dormitory beds by 2030.” Of the 38,232 students living off-campus in 2014, the report said that 21,425 were undergraduates.

Jason Desrosier, the CDC's community engagement coordinator, said that there are a number of unanswered questions with the progress report, such as where the new dorms will be built and who will move into the units freed up by the students leaving. He said that some parts of the report were confusing, such as the high number of students living in Upham's Corner.

According to the report, 1,250 undergraduates and 1,403 graduate students live in Allston, while Brighton is home to 1,509 undergraduates and 2,130 graduate students.

Only six people attended Thursday's meeting at the Josephine Fiorentino Community Center. Desrosier said that around 10 people had attended earlier the two earlier meetings at the CDC offices on Linden Street and the Presentation School in Oak Square.

Brighton Center resident Fred Salvucci said that the mayor should accelerate the timeframe to 2022 instead of 2030 because the new dorms could be used to house athletes and spectators for the Olympics. He also said that schools should take on the issue themselves.

“In the case of [Boston College], they can do more,” he said. “[The Massachusetts Institute of Technology] needs to house graduate students. They have the land and they have the money.”

Desrosier said that one of the problems was rental agencies flouting the city ordinance that no more that four undergraduates can live together, which the Inspectional Services Department is having a hard time enforcing. One of the ideas that had been proposed was a program to certify landlords so that they would have to pay a fee for the certification and would be fined for violations, with the proceeds going to ISD.

“Why would the new regulations be enforced?” said Allston resident Guy Asaph.

“It brings in money,” Desrosier replied.

He added that some other ideas had proved unworkable – private dorms were expensive and poorly-built while taxing absentee landlords at commercial rates would require action from the state legislature. He said that he would be going down to New Brunswick, NJ to see how residents settled issues with Rutgers University students.

Desrosier said that the CDC would sponsor a follow up to last October's housing forum later in the year.